Terran Navy
Fleet Command, more commonly known among the citizens as FLEETCOM '''and to foreign power as '''Terran Navy, is the main interstellar warfare branch of the Armed Forces of Greater Terran Union, alongside its sister branches, the Land Force Command, and Air Command. Much of its military tradition, structure and history could be traced back from the previously seaborne Fleet Command (which today renamed as Maritime Command) and the Space Warfare Branch of the Air Command. It is formed shortly after the first contact with other non-Tyrum alien species as part of a vast military restructuring program in the early 23rd century. The official headquarters of FLEETCOM is located in London on Earth, but the bulk of its administration and command staff are located at the central station of the vast Fleet Shipyards and the planet Arcadia, located in the Sirius System. Despite having smaller manpower compared to the gargantuan Strategic Ground Command, FLEETCOM are regarded as the most important branch of the Armed Forces simply due to the sheer size of the GTU’s interstellar empire (and hence, its equally large defence requirement). It is such an important aspect of the GTU that many of its High Marshals, such as Qing Huang and Connor Lonergan, are often drawn directly from the FLEETCOM. Nevertheless, Fleet Command are regarded as the single largest and the most capable interstellar navy any individual star-nation could wield in the Milky Way Galaxy, surpassed only by a small margin by the Star Concord’s multinational Joint Fleet Command. Organization Permanent Operational Fleets The core of the FLEETCOM lies on the various components in the operating forces of the Terran Navy. Each components are responsible for their respective area of responsibility across the GTU’s territories. However, unlike the more rigid fleet structure and names (such as the typical numbered fleets, i.e: 1st Fleet, 2nd Fleet etc) employed by many galactic naval forces, The FLEETCOM are organized under a series of Numbered Expeditionary Fleets that contain up to ten battlegroup/task force (i.e: Home Fleet’s Homeworld Defense Battlegroup or the 2nd Ex.’s Task Force Rodina), with each formation could field about 5,000 to 13,000 combat starship at a single time. During peacetime, each Commissariats are afforded one Numbered Expeditionary Fleet to be stationed at strategic or major star system within their area of responsibility and will not exceed the number of the Commissariats within the GTU (it has 7 Numbered Expeditionary as in the end of War in Heaven). The number of Numbered Expeditionary however could fluctuate according to the military needs during wartime. However, there are some irregular formation that are also organized as part of the permanent operational fleet. This could range from the Specialized Warfare Fleets such as the Ryan’s Raider and the Ghostbusters, or the recently formed Battlegroup Styx. Excepting the irregular fleets with their own primary mission, the mission of all Terran Navy fleets is the defense of the Sol System and Earth alone. As such any fleet that operates beyond the stellar boundary of Sol is considered on "expedition", thus leading to the caveat in every fleet title of "expeditionary". Naval Hierarchy The hierarchy of the warships formation employed by Fleet Command vary in size throughout history, with each units had their amount of warship required are constantly expanded as the GTU’s ability in building and manning warship increased exponentially as time marches on, as well in reflecting the need of protecting a vast swath of of its ever expanding territories. As by the beginning of the War in Heaven, the naval hierarchy of the Fleet Command is as follows: Auxiliary Components and Planetary Establishment The FLEETCOM’s day-to-day operation are largely supported by an equally large and well organized networks of auxiliary fleet, space installation, merchant fleet and planetary infrastructures to support the Permanent Fleets both in peacetime and wartime. By the militaristic nature of the Terran states and its society, it is not surprising that even its auxiliary ships are moderately well-armed and/or armoured to some degree. Its greatest examples, the Mary Seacole-class hospital ship are reputedly capable in sustaining heavy damages from corvettes/destroyers pack raid as well fighting said starships defensively, that it has receive far more upgrades and retrofit than compared to the entire dedicated combat corvettes classes fielded by the Permanent Fleets. In fact, it can be argued that the Fleet Command owes much of its success and might due to the fact that FLEETCOM round-the-clock maintenance of their auxiliary component, and for a good reason; its militarization as well its history of constant, long warfare had made the Fleet Command to be more focused on the less-flashy aspects such as logistic, medical and economy to the fanatical degree, in anticipation of the worst scenario where the crippling of said aspect could heavily inflicted to the operational basis of the FLEETCOM. Among the key components and establishment of the FLEETCOM’s auxiliary forces include: Combined Reserve Fleet Force In accordance with the agreement between National Council (on behalf of the Terran Armed Forces) and the myriad of military forces across the GTU's sphere of influence, the officially designated ‘auxiliary forces’ are to be incorporated into FLEETCOM’s overall command structure with a level of autonomy and restrictions imposed upon this semi-independent military institutions. This could range from the respective Commissariats defence forces to the militaries of the GTU vassals. Personnels Recruitment and Training All citizens upon reaching 20 who wishes to join the Fleet Command may take part in the mandatory national service for about 2-5 years. They started as spaceman second rate upon joining the FLEETCOM, and gained the rank spaceman first rate in about 1-2 years of service in accordance to their performance. During this time period the recruit are exposed with a myriad of combat environments, services, space tactics and so on as a way to evaluate and assign the trainees in which department it excels most. Unlike the Land Force however, the average period for the FLEETCOM’s term of enlistment are about 7 years (compared to a whopping 12 years minimum for the LFC), making it far more popular option for any citizens to enlist in. To deal with the constant overflow of application, those who are deemed ‘unsuited’ for FLEETCOM’s service are more often end up transferred to either Air or Land Force Command (but not the other way around) due to the more pressing need of manpower for both branches. Like its Land Force and Air counterparts, any participating sailors are permitted to drop out from their service before the end of their mandatory service within any ‘justified cause’ such as injury beyond repair (physically or psychologically), long-term medical leave, or simply deemed unable to continue training any further. For the latter, this brought heavy risk of being deemed a ‘washout’ with problems such as social stigma and difficulty in increasing tier citizenship despite the GTU’s effort to remedy this problem. However, the GTU’s long experience of ‘washout dilemma’ in the Land Force Command and the greater need of specialized trade compared to its other counterpart meant that a former FLEETCOM drop-out (or those listed for the aforementioned ‘cross-service transfer’) may be able to reenter training as part of the Reserves Training Program upon request, in which the former drop-out are instead trained as a vital, non-combatant personnel for various tasks such as administration, medical, engineering and logistics. This effort had at last remedied the washout dilemma that Fleet Command suffered to the point that Land Force Command themselves had been enthusiastically adopting this approach as well. However, this isn’t the only means of enlistment that any citizens could apply. Those who are desiring in becoming an officers via fast-track means or those identified with specialized trade instead may take part in the myriads of specialized academies and/or higher education institutions run by the Aerospace Training and Education Command, ranging from officers academy (ex: Chittagong Officers Academy, Earth), state-run university (ex: New Kinabalu Military University, Arcadia), starfighters academy (Marathon Training Center, Thermopylae Station) or even drawn from fully civilian-run universities depending on the graduates certification via recommendation. (ex: a medical graduate from Harvard may receive recommendation/conscripted to join FLEETCOM’s Medical Service). Ranks and Officers Prior to the First Galactic War, the officers and ratings of the Terran Navy are almost exclusively drawn from the human and - a few decades after Wessari Annexation - wessari population of the GTU, with other species that constitutes the GTU population relegated to the Protectorate auxiliary fleets and planetary defense flotilla. The non-human soldieries does allowed to rise as enlisted and NCOs, although only the Wessari are able to petitioned the National Council to grant members of their species full commissions in the Navy as befitted their declared citizenship tiers so far. Institutional resistance to the idea of non-human military officer at that time however prevented those who did gain commission from rising high in the ranks. Nevertheless, increasing support of human population over the citizenship right of the non-human population ensure that more xeno officers are to be included as part of the commissioned officer corps, but with the human population overwhelming the entirety of GTU’s non-human population means that the COs will remain dominated by humans for most of the time. This changes after a series of catastrophic defeats at the First Battle of Soao and Xukkanis in which scores of senior officers are perished, and the subsequent purging of other officers and command staff blamed for the disasters (including several marshals) resulted in many of the xenoi officers getting promoted rapidly with two wessari COs rising to Admiral rank. From the end of the First Galactic War onwards, the COs of the Fleet Command are to be dominated by the humans and other martially-inclined xenos, such as the wessari, faraxians and the formerly-nomadic khel’zen, although polenians and rixian could still attain the rank without much problem. Enlisted * Spaceman (Second Rate) * Spaceman (First Rate) * Leading Spaceman * Petty Officer (Second Rate) * Petty Officer (First Rate) * Chief Petty Officer * Command Petty Officer * Master Chief Petty Officer Commissioned Officers * Warrant Officers * Ensign * Leftenant (Junior Rate) * Leftenant (Senior Rate) * Leftenant Commander * Commander * Captain * Commodore * Rear Admiral * Vice Admiral Executive Commanders Executive Commanders are the Fleet Command's officers that either held the executive power within the National Council as a Marshal (doubles as the FLEETCOM's Commander-in-Chief), or those deemed eligible to be granted say within the National Council and National Assembly due to their importance, such as the Chief of Staffs, Chief of Headquarters, Chief of Naval Intelligence and the Fleet Admiral of Battlegroup Styx. * Admiral * Fleet Admiral * Marshal of the Fleet Command Equipments and Ships Evolution of Ship Design From the early days of the Space Warfare Branch, much of its design philosophy of its Terran starships and its relevant equipment are mostly spartan and utilitarian in nature that would devoid of anything unnecessary. Unlike the more exploration-minded Star Concord and highly aristocratic Florians, its warship would be created solely for fighting, and this mindset are also extended further into its civilian starship building; even its merchant vessels and luxury liners are in some way designed to be armed enough to be able to defend itself. During the mid 22nd century, its first true space warship are designed to be modular and simple based on a long, rectangular shape that from outside view would look very blocky, ugly and inelegant. The modular nature of its starship design allows each of its section independent from one another, thus allowing easy maintenance, ability to maintain firepower in case of combat damage as well allowing a highly efficient use of resources during the process of shipbuilding. Its early space propulsion are only comprised of a single, powerful engine and lacks anti-gravitic units to make efficient space and energy use compared to the extremely inefficient ship design used by the Tyrum invaders decades earlier, at the cost of being unable to achieve atmospheric flight should it accidentally wander too deep into any planet’s gravity force and thus necessitate the use of space shuttles for supply and crew boarding. But as the 23rd century reaches its end, the technological leap of the Terran shipbuilding prowess has led to numerous innovation and improvement over humanity's starship technology, and in particular the Fleet Command themselves. For example, the novel multi-nacelles engine technology - long thought to be fuel inefficient compared to the single-engine design - become increasingly practical and economically feasible in line with advancement of the fuel technology that allows ship to consume lower fuel while allowing longer travel range compared to the previous century. This allows starship to descent into the planet's gravitational well and perform atmospheric flight without problem, and subsequently eliminates the need for the often time-consuming and increasingly inefficient use of space shuttle for planet-to-ship boarding. Furthermore, the aforementioned revolutionary engine technology had also bring numerous subtle changes over humanity’s starship. Atmospheric flight of the starship enables the use of anti-gravitic drives (along with its centuries of innovation and refinement) for the first time, allowing the installment of previously luxurious component economically viable even for military use. The ships overall look, while still retain its utilitarian, modular and pragmatic design, had moved away from its signature blocky features and become more streamlined to necessitate optimal atmospheric and space travel of the warship. Furthermore, advancement of technology allows humanity to progressively design larger and more powerful warship as time marches on, thus provide humanity a definite edge over the development of the fast battleship, carriers and titans far ahead than the rest of the galaxy save the preexisting, waning Fallen Empires - all without sacrificing the resource efficiency on ship construction, manning and maintenance that are the trademark of humanity’s culture.Category:Military